Is There Life After Congress? Former Members Help Colleagues Cope

Is there life after Congress?

Dozens of House and Senate members -- whether booted out by voters or bowing out by choice -- have grappled with that ominous question for weeks. And who better to offer guidance -- and perhaps even identity crisis intervention -- than lawmakers who previously walked those same halls of power?

On Monday, behind closed doors in the underground U.S. Capitol Visitors Center, the Association of Former Members of Congress will provide a mix of wise counsel and tough love for this latest flock of lame ducks about to leave the legislative nest.

Should the future formers move back home or "go Washington" as many before them have done? Take time off or rush into a new venture? Launch the next campaign or swear off politics? Hustle for an administration post? A lobbying job? Start a business? Teach college? Join a think-tank?

Nearly every path the almost-exes are mulling is familiar to their predecessors, former eight-term Rep. Connie Morella, (R-Md.) told Politics Daily. There is no reason for them to waste time and peace of mind reinventing this particular wheel when collegial aid and comfort are so close at hand.

"The purpose of this session is is to say, 'Hey, we are here, we can help you," said Morella, the association vice president, who lost her race for a ninth term in 2002 after state Democrats gerrymandered her district. Now 79, she had the last laugh when President Bush sent her to Paris as ambassador to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

One departee planning to attend is 13-term Rep. Bart Gordon (D-Tenn.), who announced his retirement a year ago. Now 61, he'll be staying in Washington because his wife, Leslie, travels often to New York for her banking job and their 9-year-old daughter is in school here.

Having turned down a lucrative job running a trade association in an industry for which he had little passion, Gordon said, "I realized I want to be happy, to be with people I enjoy and work with issues I care about...There is a project I have in mind and I want some former members as advisers."

How lawmakers cope as they leave Capitol Hill often hinges on whether they retired or were fired, former Rep. Lou Frey, Jr. (R-Fla.), told me. "If you walked away of your own accord, people give you a lot of credit, they call you a great American... If you ran and lost there is a perception that you didn't know it was too late to be asking, 'just give me one more term.' That is much harder to deal with."

Five-term Frey, now 75, knows that scenario well. He left a safe House seat in 1978 and promptly lost the GOP primary for governor. "It was one of the few dumb decisions I ever made." With a wife and five kids back home, he needed to earn big money fast. So he joined a prestigious law firm here, lost a U.S. Senate race two years later, and did the Washington-Florida workday/weekend commute until 1988. Then he move home for good.

The transition is much harder for career pols than those with other life experiences, noted 13-year Rep. Bill Gray (D-Pa). A lifer, he said, is "someone who started on the city council at 25, then went to the state legislature and finally to Congress before leaving at 60." They are more inclined to stay in Washington "because the opportunities for your career are in D.C. or New York, not in Waterloo, Iowa, or in Minnesota or Oklahoma.

"People who had a profession, who were doctors or lawyers or who ran a small business, find the transition to normal life much easier," added Gray, a college professor and ordained minister with a Philadelphia church before his election. The self-described "preacher and teacher" left the House in 1991 to run the United Negro College Fund, raising $1.5 billion until his 2004 retirement. He later co-founded GrayLoeffler, a Washington lobbying shop, with former Rep. Tom Loeffler, (R-Tex.).

Ah yes, lobbying. First, as a member of Congress, you write the bills. Then, as a former member of Congress, you represent the industry affected by those bills, although federal ethics laws require a one-year hiatus from direct lobbying of former colleagues. While Washington's revolving door is bound to spin vigorously with so many unemployed legislators poised to hit the streets, they don't necessarily have a lock on lobbying jobs. (Indeed, their top aides, who in many cases actually wrote the bills, may be more valuable.)

"Some people are well-suited for this, some are not," explained Democratic lobbyist Jack Quinn, a former Clinton White House counsel and co-founder of Quinn Gillespie and Associates with Ed Gillespie, a former counselor to President George W. Bush. "Look, it's a service business and the question is, can you apply yourself in a way to serve your clients' interests, to prosecute their point of view? None of us in this business are staffed by other people. We are staffing our clients. Some people can adapt to that, some can't." For the record, no almost-formers have approached Quinn about a job, and he said he hasn't made any offers.

Despite the high toll on incumbents this election cycle, "there is never a 'glut' of lobbyists," opined Democrat Lanny Davis, a former special counsel to President Clinton, who runs his own eponymous firm here. "That's because there will always be a glut of incomprehensible bills introduced that need explanation by former members who are the only ones who can explain them, which is a primary and necessary function of lobbyists, probably going all the way back to the Washington (George) administration." Davis isn't hiring at the moment either, but that could change.

In advance of Monday's "Is there Life After Congress?" session, several ex-members offered a few survival tips.

"Respect the judgment of your constituents and preferably bottle up the political bug and start a new life as far removed from Capitol Hill as possible," advised defeated 15-term Rep. Jim Leach, (R-Iowa), who taught at Harvard and Princeton before President Obama tapped him to head the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Frey had two pieces of advice, one esteem-building, one cautionary: "The most important thing is that every member and every former member has been a winner in his or her district to be able to join this exclusive club: You were a player in the most important legislative body in the world, and only approximately 11,000 people in the history of the U.S. have served."

And now for the reality check. "Remember you are not No. 1 anymore," said Frey, who practices law and created an institute of politics bearing his name at the University of Central Florida. "I never sit in the audience at any event, unless it's a charity thing. If I'm not speaking on stage, I don't go. I still value myself and my time."

"Don't make Congress your life," suggested one-term Rep. Marjorie Margolies, D-Pa. "I can remember going to a meeting and a Democratic committee chairman told me, 'I look at myself in the mirror and think, I am a member of Congress.' That is so dangerous. We are here to serve the people." She now heads the nonprofit Women's Campaign International at the University of Pennsylvania.

But Margolies realizes that leaving Capitol Hill will be hard for some of the powerful veterans. "For many members, this will be way, way, way the highlight of their lives. For me, I just did a drive-by."

Morella wants them all -- from freshmen to long-serving committee chairs -- to join the 550-member member Association, if only to stay current on international matters, join overseas election monitoring teams, meet with foreign parliamentarians, promote careers in public service on college campuses and, perhaps most important, keep in touch with each other "so they won't feel they are bowling alone."